Tony's Street Tacos at Gosling and Spring Stuebner

Tony's Street Tacos has opened a new location at Spring Stuebner and Gosling, just down the way from their former location at Northampton and Root Road.  Chef Tony was at this location when I came by to check it out. I usually order the tacos, but this time he recommended the empanadas and sopes.  I got a chicken empanada and a brisket sope.  

Tony opens the empanada and adds sauce and a creamy white cheese before serving it, so it eats like a fried puffy taco.  The crust is light with a good bite, and the filling is delicious.  The sauce makes the chicken moist and tender.

The sope is a fried dough circle (looks a little like a larger shortcake) topped with a mound of your choice of protein, lettuce, white cheese and their special sauce.  The sope is firm and has a lip, so even though it's piled high you can pick it up to eat it.  The sope is satisfying and crunchy, but the truly special part for me is that slow-cooked brisket.  It comes out tender and with great flavor.  

You get two salsas with your food, green and red. The green chile salsa is mild and flavorful, only a slight kick. The red sauce is seriously hot. I put just a little on my empanada and it was all I could handle. Both have good flavor and are worth using. The salsas are served in a knotted plastic wrap, which makes them a bit harder to work with (you can poke them with your fork).
Tony's Street Tacos now has three locations--one on Louetta, one down in Rosenberg, and the most recent addition here inside the "Buzzin' Market" at the Valero station.  I'm really happy to have a location close at hand again.

My Yelp Review

El Kourmet the Woodlands

This location is now a "brick-and-mortar" restaurant located in the shopping center with Mi Querencina. I stopped in the other day to see what had changed. Some things have changed, some not. The location lists its hours as 9-9 most days. I went in for lunch and it has the same menu as the food truck that was at this location. This time I went for the El Kourmet burger with beef (you can get it with chicken or pork as well) and fries, and a Pappillon con Limon.

The fries are pretty meh and could be passed up. The burger is quite good, a luxurious stack of ingredients--the beef patty, what some US folks would call Canadian bacon, a fried egg, their special cheese sauce and potato sticks. It's plenty of food, a very satisfying meal.

The decor inside is basic, tables with one TV. No decorations to speak of. The bathroom was clean and ready. Certainly reasonable to sit down and eat there.

I would expect they'll do more to differentiate their restaurant as they go forward. I would say it is fine but still doesn't stand out among the collection of Venezuelan restaurants and food trucks we now have in the area.

My Yelp Review

888 Chinese Restaurant

 This place has been open in our neighborhood for a little over a month. We came in for dinner the other night to try it out. Ordered the chicken dumplings in spicy sauce and a cup of wonton soup as appetizers, and the Taiwanese Style Rice Noodles and Beef on Sizzling Platter for mains.

• The difference between the fried and steamed dumplings can be subtle. The fried ones are firm on the bottom. They had a nice texture. The sauce was only a little spicy, mostly a soy sauce flavor with chili oil but it tasted good. The wonton soup had very good flavor, a nice rich broth and tasty wontons. They brought rice crispy noodles with it, which is one of my favorite things on a Chinese menu.
  
  The rice noodle dish was basically like a combination fried rice, but with rice noodles. It included pork, chicken, shrimp and egg. The shrimp portion was generous. I like rice noodles and these were pretty good, properly chewy and sticky since they were not in a sauce.
  
  The beef on sizzling platter was an adventure. It's basically Asian style fajitas, except no tortillas. The platter was super hot and the beef was really sizzling--so much so that the servers were afraid of it and I thought for a second it was going to go in our laps. Hot is great but this actually overcooked the beef a little. The sauce was a sweet sauce with pepper, a basic flavor but quite good. I would get that again.
  
  The servers were very polite and enthusiastic. The decor is basic but comfortable. I would say that the food is cooked and spiced not to offend. If you like standard American-style Chinese food this would be a perfect place for you. No need to fear the spicy dishes unless you are very sensitive. 

• My Yelp Review

Domino's near Gosling and Mossy Oaks

Just tried out our new Domino's location. I've never gotten a sandwich from Domino's before so decided to try that. Got a Philly Cheese Steak sandwich, the bacon and cheddar loaded tots, and an ExtravaganZZa specialty pizza on thin crust. The pizza was good as always. The tots, not so much. They run them through the pizza oven, so when they come out the cheese is thoroughly burned. They weren't awful, I kind of like crispy cheese, but the tots are kind of dried out as well. The sandwich, though, was quite good. For $7.99 I would say it is competitive with hot sandwiches from the other sandwich chains.

No problems with the location, I think the tots would come out the same anywhere. Definitely get something else as an appetizer.

My Yelp Review

Olio E Farina

This is a concept restaurant from the owner of the former Russo's franchise at this location.  The description--a Brazilian Steakhouse but for pizza--was interesting so we went to try it out.  

The food is a fixed menu for a fixed price, and if you like trying lots of things and have a decent appetite I think it's worth the $24.95 plus the usuals.  You get four appetizers and 13 pizza samples (3 dessert) for that price.  

The appetizers are an Italian salad, a meatball, a truffle-stuffed mushroom, and a cup of tomato basil soup, all sample size.  The salad was kind of disappointing--lettuce and some sliced hard cheese (I think hand cut parmesan but not a lot of flavor) and a light dressing.  The lettuce had been cut too soon and was a bit wilted though not inedible.  The meatball and truffle mushroom were good--pleasantly seasoned with good texture. The truffle mushroom was deep fried with a very nice crust and tasty filling.  The soup was served in a small cup with no spoon, obviously you were to drink it.  The texture was pretty thick for drinking but it had very good flavor.  All in all a good start.

After about 10-15 minutes we started getting pizza.  The chef makes one or two of all 10 pizzas and everyone gets a small slice.  All are on a tasty chewy thin crust.  Some standouts for me:

-  My favorite was the meat lover's, much like chain places
-  The Fig & Pig sauce was actually more like honey.  Still pretty good
-  My favorite dessert pizza was the Smores pizza.  All were decent, and I usually skip dessert pizza
-  The Southwest Chicken had roasted raw jalapeno on it and was very spicy

Some early review mentioned service issues on a busy evening but we went on a Saturday night and all was fine, so I think they have that covered.  The decor is the same as the Russo's, a nice looking place.  Bathroom was clean and ready.  Unfortunately we ended up in a booth that was set up too narrow and we were kind of squeezed in.  Looked like that was the only one with that issue.

Your experience will depend on when you arrive and how much you want to eat.  If you come in the middle of a service you might have a gap in your dining experience while the pizza comes around again.

We had a good time and can recommend it.  I'm not sure I would want to do it again unless I had visitors or friends that wanted that experience.  They may have to keep changing the concept to keep it fresh.

My Yelp Review